The average new car just crossed $50,000 according to Kelley Blue Book.
50 grand used to be a luxury car that would impress the ladies. Now it’s a boring car that impresses the loan officer.
Toss in thousands in fees and “market adjustments,” skyrocketing insurance thanks to trial lawyers and illegals yolo-ing with no drivers license and no car insurance. And car loans that just hit an 7% thanks to the Federal Reserve and a new car is running the price of a starter home in 1990.
How we Lost Cheap Cars
This isn’t because America forgot how to build things. We build fighter jets, rockets, AI data centers, and enough compliance paperwork to heat a small city.
It’s because Washington took the basic car and forced up the price with manufacturing regulations, taxes, monopolistic rules and green mandates.
Politically, pile 50 grand cars on top of half-million dollar starter homes, thousands-a-month health insurance, and bankruptcy-inducing medical costs and it’s putting Gen Z into debt slavery they’re voting Socialist in dreams of escape.
Trump Ends Biden Mandate
This week, Trump took a big step to help, formalizing a rule to roll back Biden-era fuel-economy mandates that had become a stealth EV mandate requiring an absurd 50.4 miles per gallon in just 5 years.
To put that in perspective, the 1980’s Yugo with aluminum foil quarter panels you could dent with a finger got 29 per gallon. The original 1960 Mini, which was slightly bigger than a lawnmower, got 39. Biden’s handlers put 50 into law.
Getting a full-sized car -- or an SUV -- to 50 means tens of thousands of exotic material, and emission tech complete with the dreaded auto-stop feature. Or the actual goal, forcing you into an EV.
Trump lowered it to 35 mpg. Still up from 30 today, but no longer written by people who think every American family should drive a government-approved toaster.
Of course it’s not just mileage rules, it’s a thousand little costs, all stapled together: compliance credits, dealer monopolies, factory permitting, lawyers billing $900 an hour to dodge climate activists waving tree frogs.
So what would cars look like without this regulatory gauntlet? We have a natural experiment in China, which is building fully functional cars for 10,000.
During his recent sit-down with China, Trump said he’d be open to Chinese automakers building plants here. Of course they’d have to completely redesign for our empire of climate-fairy bespeckled red tape, so they’d be a lot more.
But the wider point is instead of handing yet another million-job industry to China, just stop crippling American production.
4 Steps to Cheap Cars
First, finish killing the EV mandate and let electric vehicles -- or small fuel-efficient cars -- compete on the merits.
Second, end California’s regulatory veto. California is big enough that its rules effectively write national rules -- exactly what the Commerce Clause is supposed to prevent. A state that can’t keep its lights on should not be writing national industrial policy.
Third, break the dealer cartel. Franchise laws block direct sales, limit competition, and turn buying a car into a hostage negotiation tacking, according to one study 5,000 dollars on the cost of a car.
Fourth, make it cheaper to manufacture in America. Faster permits for mines, refineries, power plants, factories, fabs for chips that go into cars.
Finally, the big kahuna: Bring inflation back down to 2% — ideally to zero — by slashing Federal spending. This stops runaway prices, lets the Fed cut rates to lower car loan interest. Alas, with this Congress — Republican or Democrat — that’s a snowball’s chance.
Americans want safe, reliable, Made in US cars you can buy without pawning the kids. Instead of cheap Chinese cars, Congress can just stop waging war on the car industry and maybe ease off the trillions in fraud and waste.
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I had never heard of Franchise laws, so I just looked them up. Yep, it's true. Ridiculous.
In so many ways, Congress is the problem.
"The dreaded Autostop function"
Yes indeed. Especially, like me, if you live in a tropical country with high humidity which requires permanent A/C. SO this means, when you stop at lights the autostop kicks in but then as the temperature rises the engine restarts to operate the A/C. Then the autostop kicks in again. And so on forever. It's SOOOOOO annoying. Most cars allow a manual switch off but no cars I am aware of allow a permanent disabling of autostop. I' have conditioned myself to switching off autostop every time I start a car but it shouldn't be necessary.
So can you PLEASE make that another condition of change?